Manmade Global Warming -- Just as Real As Malthus/DDT/Take Your Pick

  

What happens when you use the scientific method on the "science" of anthropomorphic global warming (i.e., it's all our fault!)?  Why, you discover that manmade global warming has just as much chance of being right as all the other scare stories of the past.  Remember how DDT was supposed to cause cancer and be harmful to animals, so we needed to ban it worldwide?  Well, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was based on ludicrous speculations with no scientific basis, and resulted in DDT being banned around the world.  To date, no studies have linked DDT to cancer, but on the bright side millions have died from malaria.

Scholars Kesten Green (International Graduate School of Business, University of South Australia) and J. Scott Armstrong (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) studied forecasts of human-caused environmental disasters (e.g., Malthus, timber famine, ozone hole, salmonella in eggs, etc.).  They found 26 forecasts analogous to today's manmade global warming hysteria, and concluded:

None of the 26 alarming forecasts that we examined was accurate. Based on analyses to date, 19 of the forecasts were categorically wrong (the direction of the effect was opposite to the alarming forecast), and the remaining 7 of the forecast effects were wrong in degree (no effect or only minor effects actually occurred).

Not only that, but:

For example, the Administrator of the EPA banned DDT in the U.S. in 1972. The U.N. and W.H.O. withheld financial aid from developing countries to force them to stop using DDT. There has been no evidence found of any link between DDT and cancer in people but—without DDT and with substitute insecticides being more toxic and less effective—insect-borne diseases have increased leading to millions of additional deaths and widespread sickness. Government policies have, as a consequence, been very expensive without any benefits accruing. Some restrictions and bans on DDT-use continue to this day (Persistence = 1). This description draws heavily on Edwards (2004).

The calls for action were followed by the implementation of government policies intended to address the alarm in 23 of the analogous situations. Among the analogous situations in which government action was taken, our initial assessment is that harm was caused by the government policies in 20 (as with DDT, the cost of the policies exceeded benefits) or policies were ineffective or the net effect was uncertain in 3. In none of the analogous situations were the policies clearly effective.

Both Green and Armstrong have begged for peer review of their work--thus far no takers. Wonder why that is?

The problem is, people want to save the world.  They want to feel like they are contributing something beyond their daily lives.  Unfortunately, too many of them are sanctimonious twits who think they know better than the rest of us how to run our lives and are morally superior to the rest of us because they're saving the planet!

If it's not DDT it's global warming, or it's being forced to use CFL lightbulbs instead of incandescent lights, or giving up oil as an energy source (or not using nuclear) because, damn it, they ARE morally superior to us proles and must use the power of government to force us to act the way THEY think we should.  So what does it matter that their idiotic crusades cost us billions in money and millions in lost lives, or that scientists fake their data or apply 'corrections' to get the results they want, or ignore scientific studies that prove the sun controls the Earth's climate and not man. It's the intent that's important.  After all, it's for the children, right?

Hat tip:  doubleplusundead